Shonen jidai

I doubt many non-Japanese viewers will ever see this movie, but I recommend it if a subtitled version is available. Admittedly I am a bit biased, as I was working as a guest English teacher in the rural Japanese prefecture of Toyama when this movie was being filmed there, and in a way I became attached to the area and my life there in somewhat the same way as the displaced boy Shinji did in the story.

The film gives a glimpse into life for ordinary country people during the war, though perhaps it is a too-rosy depiction. Japanese adults who would have been the same age as the fictional boys during the final months of the war told me tales of greater hunger and deprivation than this film even hints at. But the more important aspect of the story is the complex and often harsh society of children. I wonder whether the filmmaker intended the world of the village boys to represent something of a microcosm of adult society? If I can ever find a version of this film subtitled in English perhaps I will be able to appreciate the nuances much better than my very basic Japanese allows.